Thursday, August 20th, 2020

The sound of the shofar blasts down the hallway and around the corners of our floor. The leader of the afternoon prayers holds the door to the smoking porch open as the boss sounds the traditional calls: one long blast, three shorter ones, nine staccato bleats, then one even longer tone, lasting until his breath gives out. The calls don’t echo in the atrium, but they do reverberate, hanging in the air for a short while after he’s done. Two boys playing on the ground level, one with a mask and one without, don’t seem to notice. A woman with a phone on another interior porch, across the space from us and two floors down, looks up and nods. I was surprised when the boss took the shofar out of its velvet bag a few moments before. I thought the new moon would be tomorrow, not today. Rosh Hashanah is one month from now, so he’ll be blowing the shofar every afternoon as we pray in the hallway together. Last year, we were in the smaller conference room. The shofar seemed louder but reverberated less. Now, we stand out in the hall, masked, several meters apart, as we worship together. More of the workers throughout the building will get to hear the shofar this year, whether they plan to or not.